Crocker’s Triumph

 

H. W. Crocker’s Triumph: The Power and The Glory of the Catholic Church A 2,000 Year History is the most biased and demonic take on church history I have ever read. He makes the case for The Spanish Inquisition, saying it didn’t kill as many as other bloodshed in Europe, he defends The Fourth Crusade that was Western Christians who killed Eastern Christians and took Constantinople, and he defends The St. Bartholomew Day Massacre slaughter of Huguenots Christians, defends The Thirty Year’s War, and  focuses on Martin Luther’s bowel movements rather than his theological arguments, his exegesis, and influence on Europe. 

The Roman Catholic Church has apologized for The Crusades and other violences of the Church like The Inquisition, “In 2000, Pope John Paul II began  a new era in the church's relationship to its history when he donned mourning garments to apologize for millennia of grievous violence and persecution — from the Inquisition to a wide range of sins against Jews, nonbelievers, and the indigenous people of colonized lands and etc.” (Google Search). Crocker instead defends these acts of persecution and violence, this dark history of the Catholic Church. Remember how I said pay attention to names? Crocker has crock in it which means, “crock means nonsense; foolish talk. “that's a crock” type of: bunk, hokum, meaninglessness, nonsense, nonsensicality. a message that seems to convey no meaning.” Which is exactly what his pseudo-history of 2000yrs of Catholic History is. Rather than be honest and tell a nuanced history that Catholics did good things like compile The Bible, fought heresies like Arianism, added the Filioque (John 15:26, John 20:21-22), the Battle of Lepanto, protected literature in monasteries (Beowulf is only one example of what they saved), and telling the dark side of The Crusades, The Inquisition, the Wars of Religion in Europe, and persecution of Jews & Muslims & Protestants. An honest history tells the good, the bad, and ugly of history. They do not try to make the bad and ugly seem good like Crocker does by saying that in comparison to another atrocity the Inquisitions were tolerant and killed less people. That is liking saying, well The Japanese Camps for Pows in Japan were not as bad as The German ones for Jews during World War II…

What is more startling is Crocker uses such venom, vitriol, and vehemence against Protestantism that he blames all the ills of secular society, the fall of Christendom, and modern issues on. The Middle Ages which he glorifies was full of kings and popes cutting each other down, Christendom was one ethnic invasion after of another from Holy Roman Empire, The Normans, The Franks, The Spanish, The French, and etc; it was not a paradise of unity that Cocker thinks, no it was bloody and Catholic religion was held by all the kingdoms and tribes slaughtering each other for more land and power.  This compared to the State ruling the churches he says was better, and yet I have not seen in nations that claim to be majority Christian like the USA or UK  having citizens slaughtering each other for their neighbors house or raising armies to take back The Capital; they aren’t doing such acts of violence like the Catholic kingdoms (Christendom) in the Middle Ages. 

Crocker hates Protestants, and yet Pope Francis I has decided Protestants are brothers, and that Reformation Day should be celebrated on October 31st by Catholics now. Cocker defends the Primacy of St. Peter (the unbroken line of succession from The Apostle Peter to Pope Francis) and the Pope’s Infallibility, but his book attacks what the Pope approves of now, and he defends what Popes before Francis have apologized for, making Crocker at variance with Roman Catholic teachings and the Papacy’s decisions on these matters. He goes on and on about how Protestants will not submit to authority like The Pope and interpret for themselves Scripture and doctrine, but then does the very same thing himself by making cases for things like The Inquisition, slaughter of Protestants, and etc that contradict the authority of the current Pope and Papacy, as well as prior popes and councils; Crocker isn’t submitting to authority while decrying and demeaning Protestants for not submitting to the same authority of the Papacy he shirks with his utopian views of Christendom and Protestant Hatred. 

My point isn’t that Catholicism is good, on the contrary, read my posts where I dispute and expose its many erroneous doctrines. But Crocker has written a pseudo-history, a tome of deception endorsed by Sean Hannity, Fox News Host of The Hannity Show. I find this ironic since Hannity claims to be for The American Republic, The Constitution, & Democracy but wrote a review for Crocker’s History saying it is great when Crocker makes a case for Democracy and The Republic with Separation of Church and State is evil, and that we should be under the total rule of Pope and the Roman Church like in The Middle Ages. Crocker is a Papist & Monarchist from Elizabethan Times in the 21st Century holding on to visions of glory and a Medieval Catholicism that doesn’t not exist in the form he wants. His views are at variance with everything post Vatican II and on. This Makes me suspect he is Sedevacantist Catholic who sees all the popes since Pope Pius XII as antipopes and not valid popes, which would be ironic since Crocker defends the scandal of The Antipopes as a good thing in his book. 

I know that most of you Biblical Protestants would never touch this book with a ten foot pole, but I have read reviews on Good Reads that did nor get into the depth of Crocker’s crack pot ideas and felt I should write this for benefit of anyone who picks up his dusty tome. Beware he does use persuasive arguments at times to turn you into a Romanite in the heresies section, and hopes you ignore his gloss over atrocities like The Spanish Inquisition and St. Bartholomew Day Massacre where he cheers the death of Huguenots. It is clear that his bias is one of hate, which is not the teaching of the True Church, nor the teaching of The Roman Catholic Church. So my final thought on this book is “what a crock.” Amen.